Staff: Mentor

Some things you can try:
- measure the produced heat of the body during those activities (and at rest)
- measure the required oxygen, as this is related to the consumed energy
- measure the required food (long-term measurement)
- use some model of the muscles to find an estimate
- probably some concepts I forgot or do not know

Staff: Mentor

It is possible to find approximations. The actual power/energy will vary a bit between different persons, details of the activity and other circumstances. And you always have a measurement uncertainty, of course.
It is just interesting how precise those values are. To find some values is easy.

Just for the sake of an example, say I want to calculate energy it takes for an average man to climb 30 stairs (30 steps).
I just calculated using E = m.g.h. Will that be a correct approximation? Why/why not?

Staff: Mentor

There will also be other complications like the fitness of the person in question. An unfit person will take longer to return to a basal (resting) metabolic state so in addition to the energy expended climbing the stairs there's the period after characterised by faster heart rate, heavy breathing etc.